Suzette Field's top 10 literary party hosts
From Jay Gatsby to Mrs Dalloway to the Devil himself, here's a selection of the meanest party throwers in literature
Party piece … a still
from Baz Luhrmann's forthcoming adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald's The
Great Gatsby. Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar/Warner Bros
As a professional party organiser, I base many of my events on
parties from works of literature. These fictional parties usually have a
dramatic as well as a social function. They can provide the backdrop
for significant events, including intrigues, seductions, quarrels and
even murders. Frequently, they are a vehicle for satire, particularly on
the theme of the social aspirations of the nouveau riche. All this
means that the hosts tend to be larger than life. Here are a few of my
favourites.
Suzette Field is the tribune of events promoter The Last Tuesday Society. In 2009 the Society opened a shop, art gallery and museum in Hackney. A Curious Invitation: The Forty Greatest Parties in Literature is her first book. Buy it at the Guardian bookshop.
- A Curious Invitation: The Forty Greatest Parties in Literature
- by Suzette Field
-
1. Gaius Pompeius Trimalchio in The Satyricon by Petronius
A freed Roman slave turned shipping merchant, Trimalchio throws possibly the most extravagant dinner party in literature, which forms the cornerstone of The Satyricon. His guests are subjected to 12 punishing courses, including a whole wild boar accompanied by suckling piglets and a boiled calf wearing a helmet. This culinary ensemble is served by singing, dancing slaves who also recite Trimalchio's hack poetry. In a mawkish finale the host stages an elaborate dress rehearsal of his own funeral, complete with musicians and weeping mourners. Trimalchio is probably the most referenced host in literature; Fitzgerald's original title for The Great Gatsby was "Trimalchio of West Egg".2. Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
The hero of The Great Gatsby and the enigmatic host of a series of house parties in Long Island in the summer of 1922, at the height of the prohibition era. Despite his habit of sporting a pink suit, Gatsby manages to keep a low profile at his own parties and the majority of his guests are unaware of his identity. Conversation is devoted to speculating on the source of his wealth, with theories abounding as to whether he is a German spy, a bootlegger or even second cousin to the devil. But there is a secret agenda behind Gatsby's social munificence – he hopes one day to find among his guests Daisy Fay, the girl he loved and lost before the great war. Once the parties come to an end Gatsby's guests prove to be fickle, with only two of them bothering to show up to his funeral.3. Madame la Marquise de Sainte-Euverte in In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
A fashionable Parisian hostess who throws parties throughout the seven volumes of Proust's In Search of Lost Time, the Marquise is known for her musical soirees, where she gives guests a foretaste of artists who will appear at her forthcoming charitable fundraisers. Despite her having a brother and brother-in-law who are archbishops, she's rather looked down on by the beau monde of the Faubourg Saint-Germain who frequent her salons. Perhaps this is due to her habit of inviting absolutely everyone in genteel Parisian society without discrimination, and then leaking her guest list to the press. One guest likens her opening her mouth to his cesspit rupturing.4. Odin in the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson
The father of the gods as described in the Prose Edda hosts a permanent revel in Valhalla. His guests are the Einherjar: warriors who have perished in battle. He provides them with meat from a magical boar that is cooked each night and reborn whole the next morning, and an endless supply of mead that flows from the udders of a goat perched on the roof is served to them by Valkyrie handmaidens. If the guests think Odin's hospitality is too good to be true – it is. The party is destined to go on until Ragnarök – the ultimate battle between good and evil – where the bad news is that, according to the prophecies, all the warriors will be slain.5. The Duchess of Richmond in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Vanity Fair
A real-life party hostess who appears in works by both Lord Byron and William Thackeray, she owes her abiding renown to a total historical fluke. A snobbish, disagreeable woman, she was living with her husband in Brussels in self-imposed exile for pecuniary reasons; her ball, given on 15 June 1815, was merely one in a series of society occasions thrown for officers of Wellington's army, which was based in the Belgian capital. But happily for the duchess's future fame Napoleon picked the same day to launch an offensive that culminated in the battle of Waterloo. Lady Caroline Lamb famously described the party: "There was never such a ball – so fine and so sad. All the young men who appeared there shot dead a few days after." In reality only 11 of the guests were among the battlefield fatalities.6. Jean-Frédéric Taillefer in The Red Inn and The Wild Ass's Skin by Honore de Balzac
A former army surgeon turned wealthy financier who, according to rumour, acquired the seeds of his fortune by murdering a business associate, Taillefer has reinvented himself as a press baron. To launch his first newspaper he arranges a party of the utmost magnificence: an all-night binge with exotic wines and women, to be held at his mansion on the Rue Joubert, to which he invites all the creative lights of Paris. His hope is that the sparkle and wit of their conversation will provide him with the material for his forthcoming organ.7. Mrs Dalloway in Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
The wife of a Conservative MP, Clarissa Dalloway is the heroine of Virginia Woolf's life-in-a-day novel. The "perfect hostess" of 1920s London, she spends her day buying flowers, sewing her dress, having a rest on the sofa and writing a letter while her servants busy themselves arranging her party. Impeccably mannered, she greets each guest announced by the hired butler with a "how delightful to see you". She is able to entertain her guest of honour, the prime minister, with "the most perfect ease and air of a creature floating in its element".8. Truman Capote
Used his literary fame and the proceeds of his crime thriller In Cold Blood to host a legendary "Black and White Ball" at the Plaza hotel in New York in November 1966. The guestlist was made up of friends from the worlds of showbiz, politics and finance, ranging from Frank Sinatra to J Edgar Hoover. It was a masked ball, but many of the celebrity guest contrived to wear the smallest masks possible. This "godlike gathering of five hundred" played out against the backdrop of the Vietnam war is satirised in Don DeLillo's novel Underworld: "Have you ever seen so many people gathered in one place in order to be rich, powerful and disgusting together?" Capote enjoyed party-giving so much that he never got round to finishing another novel.9. Didier "Le Basque" Laxalt in Lights Out in Wonderland by DBC Pierre
Ex-foreign legionnaire, restaurateur, purveyor of exotic culinary produce and party-promoter extraordinaire, Laxalt arranges bespoke decadent banquets in exotic venues for those who can afford it. Payment is in diamonds; only the occasional non-billionaire manages to make it onto the guestlist. At a party thrown in the disused Tempelhof airport in Berlin he serves a series of dishes featuring endangered species, including panda paw, koala leg and Galápagos Island tortoise. Known for never staying at his own parties to the end, Le Basque believes that the perfect event should have a defined finishing point, which should always be a little before guests desire, so they are left with a taste of wanting more.10. The Devil in The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The ultimate decadent party host. He arrives in 1930s Moscow under the guise of conjuror Professor Woland to host his annual Walpurgis Night celebration: the "Spring Ball of the Full Moon". His guestlist is to die for (literally), consisting entirely of damned sinners, including Caligula, Messalina and Ivan the Terrible's chief of police. The venue, a modest flat on Sadovaya Street, conceals a tropical forest filled with parrots and butterflies, two grand ballrooms lit by will-o'-the-wisps, a symphony orchestra and an ape jazz band, three ornamental fountains spurting champagne and a pool of pink champagne that later turns to cognac, in which lissom female guests frolic.Suzette Field is the tribune of events promoter The Last Tuesday Society. In 2009 the Society opened a shop, art gallery and museum in Hackney. A Curious Invitation: The Forty Greatest Parties in Literature is her first book. Buy it at the Guardian bookshop.
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